The Windows Power plans don't affect your CPU's clock speed.
The Windows Power plans don't affect your CPU's clock speed.
I recently switched to Windows 11 after a fresh install. In Windows 10, I frequently adjusted the Power Options to suit my daily routine. Since I have an AMD processor, it tends to heat up when running at maximum capacity, which is why I relied on power plans. I used three different plans: AMD High Performance, AMD Balanced, and Power Saver. With AMD High Performance, my CPU would run at full speed (and possibly boost) around 4.3-4GHz during intense gaming sessions like FPS titles. AMD Balanced kept it steady at about 4.0GHz, which I mostly avoided unless I needed high performance or power saving. Power Saver let me sleep with my CPU throttled to roughly 2.5GHz while still allowing background games to run smoothly. After updating to Windows 11, all three profiles maintained a consistent 4.0GHz speed. I’ve installed all drivers and noticed the power settings no longer affect performance. My CPU remains steady at 4.0GHz across every profile. I attempted to manually adjust the advanced settings from "Minimum/Maximum Processor state," but it didn’t make a difference. What should I do to get these profiles functioning as they did before? To clarify: my clock speed stays locked at 4.0GHz regardless of changes. I enjoyed being able to switch to Power Saver while sleeping and letting another game run quietly in the background. Then I used AMD High Performance or ChrisTitus’s Ultimate plan, which boosted my CPU up to around 4.6GHz for peak performance. My system runs a Ryzen 9 3900X with an NVIDIA 2080 Super graphics card and 64GB of RAM.
Uncertain about the meaning of "wont help with clock speeds" power profiles—it actually altered my clock speed before, and I've done so for over 15 years. Everything else stayed the same except for reformatting my SSD to upgrade to Windows 11. I’ve installed almost every driver I could think of. Do you think "PBO" is enabled in my BIOS settings? I tried turning it on, but it didn’t make a difference.
Cinebench remains consistent at 4.0GHz across both single and multi-core evaluations. The PBO feature was activated, but I reverted it to auto mode for testing without altering any settings.
To view frequency you use tools like spectrum analyzers or software such as MATLAB or Python libraries. The frequency isn't always fixed; it can vary depending on the system and conditions. It's not unusual for CPU speeds to fluctuate around 4GHz rather than stay constant.
I was checking Windows Task Manager and HWinfo. It seems the BIOS caused the issue. For some reason, the default BIOS for my MOBO and the latest version set the CPU speed to this without an "auto" setting. That’s why it stayed at 4000 all the time. To solve it, I had to revert my BIOS to an older model with the "auto" option, and now the power plans are functioning correctly!